Oil and gas reserves are accessed using various drilling and completion techniques. The drilling techniques require preparation of a drilling site by the formation of a wellbore 50, as illustrated in FIG. 1. A wellbore 50 is a narrow shaft drilled in the ground, vertically and/or horizontally as well as angles therebetween. A wellbore 50 can include a substantially vertical portion and a substantially horizontal portion and a typical wellbore 50 may be over a mile in depth, the vertical portion, and several miles in length, the horizontal portion.
A wireline, electric line or e-line 24 is cabling technology used to lower and retrieve equipment or measurement devices into and out of the wellbore 50 of the oil or gas well for the purpose of delivering an explosive charge, evaluation of the wellbore 50 or other completion-related tasks. The equipment/devices deployed in the wellbore 50 are often generically referred to as downhole tools 20 and examples of such tools are perforating guns, puncher guns, logging tools, jet cutters, plugs, frac plugs, bridge plugs, setting tools, self-setting bridge plugs, self-setting frac plugs, mapping/positioning/orientating tools, bailer/dump bailer tools and ballistic tools. Such downhole tools 20 are typically attached to a wireline 24 (i.e., an electric cable or eline), fed through or run inside the casing or tubing, and are lowered into the wellbore 50. Other methods include tubing conveyed (i.e., TCP for perforating) or coil tubing conveyance. A speed of unwinding a wireline cable 24 and winding the wireline cable 24 back up is limited based on a speed of the wireline equipment 26 and forces on the wireline cable 24 itself (e.g., friction within the well). Because of these limitations, it typically can take several hours for a wireline cable 24 and tool-string 22 to be lowered into a well and another several hours for the wireline cable 24 to be wound back up and the expended tool-string 22 retrieved. When detonating explosives, the wireline cable 24 will be used to position a downhole tool 20 or tool-string 22 into the wellbore 50 as well as provide power and/or communication to said tool string.
This type of deployment process requires the selection of a downhole tool 20, the attachment of that downhole tool 20 or a combination of tools to the wireline 24, and in some instances, the removal of the downhole tool(s) 20 from the wellbore 50. When an operator needs to deploy additional downhole tools 20 into the wellbore 50, which may be the same as or different from previously-deployed tool(s), the operator must first retract/retrieve the wireline 24 from the wellbore 50 and then attach the wireline 24 to the additional downhole tool(s) 20. That is, no practical means exists for deploying more than one wireline 24 into a wellbore 50 during typical operations. This completion process requires multiple steps, a significant array of equipment, and can be time consuming and costly. Furthermore, equipment lodged in the wellbore will typically result in complication, delay, additional human resource time, equipment cost and, often, exorbitant expense to operations.
The various drilling and completion operations requiring deployment of various downhole tools 20 as well as the changing of tools being deployed, currently require direct human interaction with the wireline 24, the tools 20 on the wireline 24 and the feeding of tools/wireline into the equipment attached to the wellhead 30. Wellhead 30 is a general term used to describe the pressure-containing component at the surface of an oil well that provides the interface for drilling, completion, and testing of all subsurface operation phases. Being pressurized and the pressurization subject to an unknown level of variability, in addition to the substantial amount of shifting equipment adjacent the wellhead 30, the area around the wellhead 30 is referred to as a ‘red zone’. That is, the dangers inherent in drilling and completion operations are focused in the area within a few yards or tens of yards around the wellhead 30. During operations, only trained personnel are permitted within a certain distance of the wellhead 30 and those personnel must be properly protected. Even then, the activities of attaching and detaching tools 20 from a wireline 24, deploying a wireline 24 and attached tool-string 22 into a wellbore 50 and retrieving a wireline 24 and attached tool-string 22 from a wellbore 50, are inherently difficult, dirty and dangerous.
In view of the disadvantages associated with currently available devices and methods for well completion, there is a need for a device and method that increases the efficiency of the completion processes. There is a further need for a device and method that increases safety, reduces the steps, time to achieve steps, time between steps and associated costs and equipment for well completion processes. There is a further need for a system and method that reduces the delay between drilling of a wellbore and production of oil or gas from the wellbore. In light of the dangers of deploying and retrieving tools from a wellbore, there is also a need to reduce or eliminate the number of persons in the red zone adjacent the wellhead, especially during particularly risk prone activities.